Pope Benedict, as I’ve said before, is the Last European, by which I mean the last great man and mind who fully comprehends the beautiful but now dying culture that produced him.

Its appalling to me, though not surprising, that the only thing the mainstream media ever covers about him is how often he apologizes for the abuses of some priests or how politically incorrect his view of gay people is or whatever.

I have now read a good selection of his writings and when the work of Foucault and Derrida and de Man and the rest of that benighted lot has toddled off to the obscurity it so dearly deserves, Benedict’s writings will stand. They may be the final flares of genius to fly up from the continent he loves before darkness closes over it.